


"I've Never Had Anything to Talk About Before"

by mustlovemustypages



Category: Blindspot (TV)
Genre: FBI, Fluff, Friendship, Gen, Jane needs a friend, Patterson likes to talk, forensics lab
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-29
Updated: 2015-09-29
Packaged: 2018-04-24 00:01:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,686
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4897357
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mustlovemustypages/pseuds/mustlovemustypages
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jane likes Patterson. It's not that she dislikes everyone else, but Weller has his control issues, and the assistant director is always looking at Jane like she is the one to blame for everything. Reed and Zapata only tolerate her because Weller forces them to.</p><p>Despite not being able to understand Patterson half the time due to her technical jargon, Patterson doesn't treat her like she's different. When Jane asked about the air-gapped laptop, she didn't look annoyed at Jane for speaking out of turn. She treated her like she's part of the team, and although Jane knows she's not, the gesture is still nice.</p>
            </blockquote>





	"I've Never Had Anything to Talk About Before"

**Author's Note:**

> I've loved Ashley Johnson since she first appeared on Growing Pains all those years ago. And then she showed up in The Avengers (and provided the voices for about a gazillion awesome cartoon characters). When I saw that she was going to be on Blindspot, my inner geeky nerd was ecstatic. Not only was Jaimie Alexander from Kyle XY and Thor going to be starring, but Ashley Johnson (aka "The Waitress") was going to be too. 
> 
> As soon as I saw her character Patterson, I knew I had to write a fic incorporating her. Patterson is basically what I would be if I was ten times smarter and worked for the FBI. Plus, she just seems super awesome, so I started thinking that a friendship piece between her and Jane would be really nice.
> 
> I hope you like it!

Jane likes Patterson. It's not that she dislikes everyone else, but Weller has his control issues, and the assistant director is always looking at Jane like she is the one to blame for everything. Reed and Zapata only tolerate her because Weller forces them to.

Despite not being able to understand Patterson half the time due to her technical jargon, Patterson doesn't treat her like she's different. When Jane asked about the air-gapped laptop, she didn't look annoyed at Jane for speaking out of turn. She treated her like she's part of the team, and although Jane knows she's not, the gesture is still nice.

* * *

During her first few days at FBI headquarters, Jane had felt out of place. Everyone else was dressed in suits and flashing official badges. It went beyond just the clothes though. All of the agents had a role, a purpose. They knew where they were supposed to be and when. More importantly – they knew who they were. Jane couldn't say any of that. She hadn't earned a clip-on badge through training and tests that she could wear with pride. She was there because of the badges engraved on her skin that she couldn't, and had no desire to, take credit for.

Jane didn't know who she was and she didn't know why she was there. Sometimes she felt more helpful than others. Like when she took down the man who had been beating his wife, or when she shot Chao and saved Weller's life. Mostly though, with every minute that ticked by Jane grew more and more aware of how much she didn't belong there. 

One day, when Weller, Reed and Zapata were out in the field, Jane had stayed behind. She wasn't needed and she had grown tired of pushing herself into the cases when they never got them any closer to finding out who she was.

Jane had just been walking down a hallway, long and identical to ten others that she had already traipsed down that morning. The walls were white, the carpet a standard issue gray. The only decoration was the occasional photograph in memoranda of some deceased agent, and the carefully placed American flag, both of which served as unofficial reminders of why they were there. Well, why everyone else was there at least.

Just as Jane had turned another corner to start walking down another hallway, someone had come rushing around the bend crashing into her. Both of them went down, along with the towering pile of files that the other person had been carrying, flying into the air in all directions.

"Oh geez! I'm so sorry," the other person had exclaimed, as Jane went to work gathering up the mountain of scattered papers. Recognizing the voice, her head had jerked up to see Patterson kneeling in front of her, cheeks flushed and heaving as if she had just run a marathon. She was wearing her usual white lab coat, which she'd smoothed down quickly before starting to collect the files, too. When Patterson noticed the pause, she'd looked up. "Jane!"

At first, Jane had thought the widening of the eyes and open mouth of the woman in front of her was in aggravation. After all, she had just messed up what was no doubt hours' worth of filing work. But then Patterson's lips had stretched into a smile, and, if Jane wasn't mistaken, she'd actually looked pleased to see her.

With the smile still in place, Patterson had bent over again and grabbed a few papers, tapping them lightly on the ground to even the corners. "Well, I'm glad it was you and not someone else that I ran into," she'd said with a laugh.

Jane had no idea why running into her was better, and Patterson must have sensed her confusion because her voice had dropped down into a whisper. "Some of these people here are a little…" She had looked around conspiratorially before leaning in closer to Jane, "…uptight."

That had caused Jane to crack a smile as she picked up the last remaining papers. They'd both stood up, each holding half of the files a foot tall apiece, but when Patterson had motioned for Jane to stack the files she was holding on top of her own, Jane offered to help her carry them to wherever she was going. Having seen the protest forming on Patterson's lips she'd quickly added, "It's not like I'm doing anything else."

Patterson had looked at Jane in amusement, no doubt guessing what she had been doing for the past hour. "I suppose you're not." She shrugged her shoulders. "All right. Thanks."

And that was the event that started Jane's hours on end spent in the forensics lab. After the initial depositing of the files, Patterson had offered for Jane to stick around. She said she'd appreciate the company and Jane was hard-pressed to think of a place she'd feel more comfortable.

It turned out Jane was excellent at rearranging files, quickly scanning the papers and finding which tests went along with which agent's folder. It kept her busy, and more importantly, made her feel useful. Patterson had been absolutely over the moon with the assistance, rambling on about how outdated the FBI was with their insistence on keeping hard copies, and asking why everything couldn't be electronically saved. After all, they were in the twenty-first century.

Her argument was logically sound in Jane's opinion and she hadn't been able to give a better response than a sympathetic smile. Which was apparently all acknowledgment Patterson needed before she spun off into another rant in which she complained about the chaotic state of the FBI's database system.

* * *

When Jane gotten to headquarters the next day and was left once again on her own, she had automatically headed down one of the corridors, steeling herself for another day of walking down bland hallways while the hours ticked slowly by.

Then someone had called her name. Or rather, her assumed name since she had lost her memory. "Jane!"

She had swiveled her head at that, completely surprised to see that the voice belonged to Patterson. For a second she hadn't known how to react, if she was supposed to go over to her or simply wave. Then Patterson motioned for her and that solved  _that_  problem.

"Hey," the young doctor had said in greeting and started walking again as soon as Jane reached her. "How was your night?"

Jane was thrown off guard by the question. It was so normal, so commonplace, but no one had asked her that in recent memory. There was so many ways she could have answered it. She could have lied and said fine. She could have told the truth and said terrible. Instead, she had settled for, "Too short," which seemed to perfectly describe how exhausted and stressed she felt, while not sounding ungrateful to the FBI for giving her a place to stay.

Patterson had seemed to share the same sentiment if the comical frown she threw Jane's way was any indicator. "Mine too." Together they had walked in silence, heading, to what Jane had been pretty certain was the forensics lab. The entire walk there, she had half-expected Patterson to tell her goodbye, or at the very least look at her in annoyance as if not quite understanding what she was still doing there.

She hadn't done any of those things though. On the contrary, when they had finally reached the lab, Patterson had cleared off a tall chair for Jane to sit on. "It spins," she'd said with a gleeful smile, as if that was the most exciting thing in the world. Jane had tested it out, and indeed, after a full rotation she did feel happier so maybe there was something to that.

Then, as if not a minute had passed, Patterson had picked up on their conversation from the day before, where they had been conjecturing if there was any possible hidden meanings behind the color choices in the ink used for Jane's tattoos.

The day went by quickly, full of talking and in some cases even helping - when Jane assisted Patterson in carrying various heavy objects around headquarters, or holding steady something she was testing. It had gone by so quickly in fact that she didn't even realize it was time to go until someone knocked on the glass wall of Patterson's lab, and Jane turned to see Weller standing there.

He'd offered to take Jane home. As much as the safe house could ever be considered a "home." Most of the car ride was silent as usual, but then he'd asked her, "How was your day?" Jane only hesitated for a moment before answering. If she hadn't been asked such a similar question by Patterson that morning, it probably would have taken her longer, if she would had answered him at all.

She'd smiled when she answered, surprising both herself and Weller. "It was good. I really like Patterson."

Weller had looked at her as if expecting a further explanation, but she hadn't had one to give. He didn't press her, knowing probably better than anyone else when let her be. Instead he'd given a short nod. "Yeah, I like Patterson too."

Suddenly though, with his agreeing, Jane did have an explanation to give, and she began to tick off all of the things she had done that day. Some in slight annoyance, where she and Patterson had disagreed on something, but most done with a slight grin, remembering how much fun she'd had. As she'd spoken, Weller had looked over at her in an attentive, but sort of amazed awe, which she didn't know how to interpret until she realized how much she'd said.

Weller seemed to have come to the same realization. When he stopped in front of the safe house and put on the parking break he'd said with a small grin, "I'm not sure I've ever heard you talk that much before."

Jane had just shrugged, unbuckling her seatbelt and opening the car door. "I've never had anything to talk  _about_  before."

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers for Episode 2: Taylor Shaw!! Another mystery, and my face broke out into the biggest smile. I may have squealed a little too. This show has gotten even better than the first episode. I was a little worried about the direction they were going to take it, but after the most recent developments, I'm not worried anymore. 
> 
> What do you all think about the newest episode?
> 
> And let me know what you think about my story :) (No beta-ing done and minimal editing).


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